The essays presented in this volume challenge commonly held assumptions about the prophetic books from Hosea to Malachi, also known as the Minor Prophets, the Book of the Twelve, or merely the Twelve. Never before in the history of the discipline have so many scholars explored the implications of ancient traditions treating these twelve prophetic writings as a single corpus. Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve brings readers into this fascinating dialogue. The first half of the book presents various models for reading this prophetic corpus, while the latter portion focuses on insights that appear when one begins to listen to constituent elements as part of a larger whole. This endeavor arises from the Society of Biblical Literature's Seminar on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve and from a special session of the 1997 SBL International Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

CONTENTS

Preface —James D. Nogalski and Marvin A. Sweeney

A Book of the Twelve? —David L. Petersen

The Production and Reading of the Book of the Twelve —Paul L. Redditt

Reconstructing the Redaction History of the Twelve Prophets: Problems and Models —Aaron Schart

Sequence and Interpretation in the Book of the Twelve —Marvin A. Sweeney

The Book of the Twelve as a Witness to Ancient Biblical Interpretation —Barry A. Jones

How to Read the Book of the Twelve as a Theological Unity —Rolf Rendtorff

Joel as “Literary Anchor” for the Book of the Twelve —James D. Nogalski

Superscriptions and Incipits in the Book of the Twelve —John D. W. Watts

The Character of God in the Book of the Twelve —Paul R. House

“Israel” and “Jacob” in the Book of Micah: Micah in the Context of the Twelve —Mark E. Biddle

The Zion-Daughter Oracles: Evidence on the Identity and Ideology of the Late Redactors of the Book of the Twelve —Byron G. Curtis

Remnant, Redactor, and Biblical Theologian: A Comparative Study of Coherence in Micah and the Twelve —Kenneth H. Cuffey

Frame for the Book of the Twelve: Hosea 1–3 and Malachi —John D. W. Watts.